


The Real Miracle of Christmas

by waywardelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas album lmao, Angst, Christmas in the Bunker, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, M/M, Season 3!Sam, Season/Series 11, Time Travel, re-establishing relationship, very temporary death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:30:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5387624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardelle/pseuds/waywardelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an argument over having their first real Christmas in the Bunker, Dean goes down to the storerooms to clear his head. Instead, he finds himself on a journey to a Christmas from his past, and one from his future that leads him to his ultimate and forever destination: back to Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Real Miracle of Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dollylux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/gifts).



> This is very loosely inspired by A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. My first ever Sam/Dean "themed" story, so I hope I did it some justice. This is a surprise gift for Dollylux, who inspired me to write my first ever Wincest story, and her advent calendar inspired me to write something Christmas-y. If you haven't read her, what's wrong with you, she is a legend. 
> 
> Unbetaed, so any mistakes are mine and mine alone.
> 
> x-posted at pathossam.tumblr.com ---feel free to follow me there, I scream about brother feelings all day long.

When Dean walks into the library that evening, he runs smack into a tree. 

“Sam!” he hollers, spitting snow and fir needles out of his mouth. “Sam, what the hell is this?”

Alarmingly, the tree answers, in a guilty, Sam-like voice. “It’s, uh. A tree.”

“I can see that it’s a tree!” Dean can feel his face getting red, his blood pressure pounding in his ears. He’s not the smart one, okay, he knows this, but that doesn’t mean the pretty thing on top of his neck is just a hatrack. He knows it’s December, knows Sam has been darting around town, coming back in with suspicious packages that tinkle together like ornaments, and one night, he shorted the electricity by plugging something in that had no business being plugged in, and he refused to tell Dean what it was. Dean, at the time, thought it was that ionic blow dryer he knew Sam ordered from that infomercial, but now, he knows. Christmas lights. 

“Sam,” he starts again, when the tree settles against the wall, eight feet tall, snow melting into great dripping puddles against the wooden floors. He tries to calm his voice, but the last time either of them celebrated Christmas, he was dying. Like, horribly dying, and Sam only did it to celebrate his life, his final year. He can’t helped but have fucked up associations, okay?

Sam must hear the wobble in his name, because he comes from behind the tree, broad shoulders hunched, looking very much like a kicked puppy. “I know what you’re gonna say, okay? You were supposed to be gone until I got it all set up.”

“Why,” Dean barks.

Sam is silent for a minute, still not meeting Dean’s eyes. Dean tries to soften his gaze a little, but every time he catches sight of the tree, he can feel his mouth get all pinched again.

“Easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission?” Sam tries eventually, his voice very small.

Dean comes toward his brother, holding his hand out like he’s placating a wild animal. He uses that hand to tuck sweaty hair behind Sam’s ears, something he hasn’t done since they, well, stopped doing that thing a couple years back, but Dean knows it calms his brother like nothing else, and he’s looking for real answers. Like clockwork, Sam’s expression opens and he meets Dean’s eyes for the first time.

“You’re not dying on me, are you?” It’s a real fear of Dean’s, okay, everyone knows this. And Sam is the sort of person to die stubbornly, silently, without asking for Dean’s help. Case in point, the awful black veins he was infected with a few months back. 

Would Sam have waited until he could feel his heart about to explode, then called Dean when he was hundreds of miles away and couldn’t do anything, to say his last goodbye? Or would he have gone quietly, alone, scared and surrounded by zombies? Would he have let Dean come find his dead body, when he expected to come pick up a tired but triumphant and very alive little brother? 

Dean has nightmares about that, sometimes, that he’s back in that overrun hospital, whisper-shouting Sam’s name around every corner, only to finally find him, long body stretched out on the floor, black veins bulging up under his skin, eyes open and unblinking, cell phone in hand, Dean’s name highlighted on the screen. Running to Sam’s body, but knowing how too-late he was, how cold his brother’s skin would be, how unnaturally still. Sam is the warmest, most golden thing in Dean’s life, always moving, always thinking fifty steps ahead. Even when Sam’s body is still, Dean can see the wheels turning, or light shining off his hair, or a vein twitching in his forehead. Sam is every motion in Dean’s world, the thing that keeps him moving, too. The tears, the wailing, the beating at his brother’s dead chest, and the pistol he would’ve put in his mouth to follow him, follow his brother wherever he proceeded Dean to, it all flashes in front of his eyes until Dean can hardly breathe, and he wakes up from the nightmare screaming himself hoarse. Every time.

“Dean,” Sam says, moving forward himself. Dean’s hand, that had been carding itself through Sam’s hair, is fisted in Sam’s collar, and he’s shaking. “Hey, whoa. It’s okay, Dean, no. No, I swear.”

“You can’t ever do that to me again,” Dean tells him, iron in his voice. Instead of letting go, he grabs Sam’s other shoulder and brings him forward, so they’re nose-to-nose. Sam’s eyes widen, his breath a little sour with beer. “Anything happens like those, those black-veined freaks again, I don’t care what you wanna do, I don’t care if you wanna find a thousand cures. You, you tell me. What, what if I--”

“Dean,” Sam tries again, his own hands rising up to cling at Dean’s forearms, where they’re shaking like a leaf from the grip he has on Sam’s shirt, the deep olive-green one, the one that makes him look so stupidly-beautiful it tears Dean’s insides apart that he can’t touch him, that he fucked up the one thing they had that would always bring them peace, bring them back together. 

“You were gonna just, just let me come back to your dead body, Sam, you fucking--”

Sam’s eyes dip, ashamed, and Dean knows he’s right. He shakes Sam, really shakes him, not enough to hurt him, but Sam just holds on like he deserves it, and that more than anything makes Dean step back and throw Sam away from him.

Sam stumbles a couple inches, that stupid mountain of a man, and they stare at each other across the library that was once warm with the fireplace, but has now gone cold, so utterly cold Dean feels like he’ll never get warm again. 

“And you, you wanna just hop down to Lucifer’s cage and let me, and leave me here to do what, to, to please God? Fuck God! And fuck you, Sam! Fuck this stupid Christmas shit. Take it down, take that tree outta my sight or I swear to fucking god, I’ll use it as firewood. You have an hour to get it outta my fucking house, do you hear me!” 

Dean hasn’t felt anger like this since the Mark was burning red through his veins, but he can barely catch his breath, and he knows if he stays, he’s gonna do something he swore he’d never do again: hurt Sam, punch him, something. 

Sam, as always, stands his ground while he takes his punishment. “It’s our house, Dean. Not just yours. It’s ours.”

“Yeah, well, after you fuck off on your mission to save the world and leave me behind again, it’ll just be mine again, won’t it!” With that, Dean spins on his heel, nearly running to get away from Sam’s wounded, flinching face, the tears he could see collecting in those eyes. He goes past his bedroom, past Sam’s where he can hear Cas playing Maury Povich, down into the belly of their home, the store rooms. 

He doesn’t wanna do anything but sit here, the place he would go when the Mark’s itch got too much, and categorize the supernatural warheads down here. 

Shocking to people, maybe, but Dean is actually pretty organized. He’s the one who sorts through the junk the MoL left behind, their legacy, and Sam is the one who researches it, tells him what it does. Dean doesn’t care, most of the time, what the shit does, only that it has a place. He works steadily for half an hour, feeling himself relax, get lost in the rhythm of it. He decides on one last box, then he’ll go upstairs to skulk around, where Sam will probably have cleared nothing out, stubborn bitch that he is (knowing him, all the lights will be strung up and an old Carpenters Christmas album will be playing on vinyl, merrily annoying as hell), and they’ll glare at each other over dinner with tight jaws, fight over the TV remote until they go to bed, slamming their respective doors. 

Unfortunately, as soon as Dean opens a box and pulls something out, he feels the tug of magic in his bones before he’s blinked out of the bunker. He has two seconds to think _Sam is never gonna fuckin’ forgive me for this_ before he hits a hard surface, and he’s knocked out, cold. 

\-------

When he comes to, Dean doesn’t remember that anything is wrong at first. It seems pretty normal, waking up in a lumpy motel bed, and he can see the snoring lump that is Sam in the bed beside him, strangely closest to the front door. 

“Hi, Dean,” Sam’s voice whispers, not from the next bed, but down by his feet. He struggles up onto his elbows to see, and it _is_ Sam, but it isn’t. It’s Sam about ten years younger, no lines on his face, no grey hair. There’s still a light in his eyes, a way to his smile that Sam doesn’t possess any more (or Dean hasn’t seen in years, at least. Maybe Sam just lost the ability to smile that way at Dean, he thinks glumly). 

This is the Sam of Dean’s year before hell, with his stupid floppy hair that’s not long enough to tuck behind his ears, so it falls forward into his eyes. It was pretty fuckin’ adorable, always made Dean smile, but he’d forgotten that, forgotten those little happy things from that otherwise horrible year.

“What the fuck is going on,” Dean grumbles, not really afraid, because in his bones he knows this is Sam, or at least a version of him, he can feel that. It’s not a demon Sam or an angel Sam, or a soulless one. It’s just Sam: a little sad, a little weary, and always the most beautiful thing in Dean’s world. 

“So, uh,” Sam smiles, scooting closer to Dean, like he can't help it. “A couple days ago, when you were out looking for our evil Santa,” and Dean can hardly remember this case, but he remembers the crazy gods that tore off Sam’s fingernail and how vindictively he stabbed that bitch because of it, and the paint thinner egg nog of after, “I fell asleep and someone came to me, got in my dreams, maybe a witch, and said I’d be getting a visit from you, a much older you, and I had to be there for you. She wasn’t bad, I don’t think. 

“But I didn’t care, because if you’re alive now, that means I saved you from Hell. I, I figured out a way,” and the smile that is on his brother’s face is so clear, so pure, so happy and relieved, Dean can’t find it in himself to warn him. Besides, he knows how time travel works, kinda, and you can’t change the past, that much is clear to him, no matter what you do. 

He remembers he gave Sam some pretty crappy gifts for Christmas that year, so maybe the gift he’ll give him eight years too late is some peace. And hell, maybe with the confidence Sam has in himself now, from this, he’ll find a way to do it. Dean believed in Sam, up until the very end, the very last day, that he’d find a way. And he didn’t blame Sam, not once, not even when he was stretched out on Alistair's rack and screaming, screaming for Sam; it wasn’t blame, it was god, please, save me, little brother, please. 

“Dean?” Sam tries again, cocking his head a little, dimples working overtime. He'd forgotten how easily Sam used to smile at him, and he’s enamored, jealous of his bastard self in this time period, how much of Sam he’s taking for granted right now and has no idea. This is before Ruby really got her hooks in him, before Hell, before Cas, even, and the Apocalypse(s). This is when it was truly just them against the world, and he aches for these days all the time.

“I’m okay, Sammy,” he says finally, reaching up to run a hand over Sam’s still soft cheek, before he even thought about stubble. “Look at you.”

“How old are you now?” Sam asks, nuzzling against Dean’s time, war-roughened hand. “Your voice is so much deeper.”

“Thirty-six,” Dean murmurs, trailing his fingers into Sam’s soft hair, tucking it behind his ears just to watch it fall back into Sam’s eyes. “And you’re thirty-two, still just as big a pain in my ass as ever.”

Sam’s eyes fly open, the startling color in there suddenly so bright, Dean sucks in a breath. “You ‘n me? We’re still… I’m still alive, too?”

Nothing in this world could make Dean dampen the happiness there, and maybe for his own selfish reasons, too. He loves seeing how happy it makes Sam to realize nothing could ever, truly, tear them apart for long. He won’t begin to mention the starts and stops, the hard won way they’ve gotten to the peace they’re in now. 

“Yeah, Sammy. Yeah. We even have a house, a home base. No more freaky motel rooms,” he grins, gesturing to the water stains above him. “Got some good friends, people who care about us. We’re doin’ good. Still hunting, but we’re at peace, I think. I like to, you know, believe you’re happy.”  


“If I’m with you, then I am. It’s that simple, Dean. Always has been.” He presses a soft-lipped kiss to Dean’s palm, brings his bigger hand up to cup the outside of Dean’s fingers.

Dean lets him have this for a minute, but his heart is starting to race in its cage. This is amazing, fucking awesome, but he’s gotta get back home. And he knows himself, knows he’s a light sleeper, and he doesn’t want to cause the melee that’ll no doubt happen if his younger self wakes up in that bed over there. 

“Sammy, don’t get me wrong, I’m lovin’ this, love seein’ you, god, just look at you. But if you notice I’m gone, you’re gonna have a meltdown, so we’ve gotta, what do we gotta do?”

Sam nods, eyes closing. “You’re right. I would panic, I know. It’s just…” He bites at Dean’s thumb, softly, smoothing his youthful lips up and down the mark. “We just don’t, you haven’t… touched me, like this, in so long.” Sam is flushing, Dean can feel the warmth under his palm.

“We have sex all the fuckin’ time!” Dean argues, knowing for a fact they fooled around, hard and loud and messy every day until Dean’s trip downstairs. 

“Not. Not that,” Sam whispers, hiding his sweet face in Dean’s palm, his smooth skin and soft hair tickling against Dean’s fingers. “This. Just… just this.” He squeezes his palm around Dean’s smaller hand. “We haven’t, just… just touched, in so long.”

Dean hates himself, again, past present and future, for denying Sam something like that, something he’d never ask for. He was so panicked that last year, and Sam was so selfless, giving him whatever he wanted, even if it was to rut against his brother like an animal, so terrified of being soft, of exposing his underbelly, not wanting it to be ripped out sooner than his year mark. 

“But okay, you’re right. I’ll let you go,” Sam murmurs, but doesn’t, so stubborn in taking this love, this little piece of Dean for himself. 

“C’mere,” Dean breathes, heart racing now for completely different reasons. “C’mere, little one.” 

When Sam doesn’t, just blinks his gorgeous eyes open and lets Dean look at the want there, naked and shining, Dean struggles to sit up. He wraps his other hand into Sam’s hair and pulls him forward, melting his mouth over his twenty-four year old brother’s baby pink lips.

Sam falls against him, feeling so fragile underneath Dean’s hands, not all world-worn and weary, so trusting, so light. His breath still hitches in his chest every time Dean licks against his teeth, he still gasps in Dean’s mouth every time his hair gets tugged on, just a little. He still tastes like Sam, and Dean has missed this so much he wants to sob into it, and he does, just a little, wrapping Sam tighter against him, wanting to take this sweet little thing back home with him, just for a little while. 

They pull back at the same time, panting, their foreheads knocking together. Their breath is damp, hot, and Dean knows if he doesn’t get up now, he’s gonna fuck his twenty-four year old little brother against this motel bed, lay him out, kiss that golden, soft, unmarked skin, worship this boy Dean loves, has always loved, will never stop loving, no matter what he does. 

“It’s not fair,” Sam moans, licking out at Dean’s lips, trying to get his taste back, and Dean, with hundreds of years of torture under his belt, knows that is the hardest thing he’s ever resisted in his life. “Not fair, how you’re still, you’re greying and getting these lines, Dean, but you’re still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I probably, I probably have aged like a, like a troll.”

Dean chuckles between them, sealing his mouth over Sam’s one more time, and Sam groans deep in his chest. “I forgot,” Dean tells him, backing away for good, “how beautiful you are at this age, Sam, but I gotta tell ya. There’s nothin’ more beautiful to me than how you are now, in my time, and I’ve never wanted you more than I do in twenty-fifteen.”

Sam smiles sadly, and says, “That’s what the witch told me to wait for. You gotta go now, Dean.”

“What?” Dean gasps, not ready to let this sweet little thing go, knows he will miss the Sam before he left for hell even more now that he remembers, with all that he is, how he talks and laughs and smells. “I don’t want to go yet, Sammy.”

“You gotta,” Sam tells him, holding out the necklace that sent him here. “It’s like this, okay? You have one more stop before you can get back to me, the me of your time. It’s gonna be me, too, wherever you land. You’re being taught something, a lesson of some kind, what, I don’t know exactly. But you know how these things work, you gotta complete the ‘lesson’ before it’ll let you get back to act on it.”

“So, what? I was s’posed to come back here, molest my little-little brother, then go molest whatever other version of him I find until I get sent back home?” Dean doesn’t understand, but it sounds a little familiar, like a story he read to Sam at Christmas a long time ago. He groans, annoyed. “Sammy, please don’t tell me you’re the ghost of Christmas past.”

“Look around,” Sam tells him, and he does. There’s eggnog sloshed over the table, a TV playing highlights of a football game long over. There’s an open skin mag on Sam’s bed, and a fresh thing of shaving cream open in the bathroom.

“This is stupid,” Dean protest. “We were fighting about having a Christmas, and--”

Sam makes a shush noise. “Don’t tell me, okay? It’s enough to know that we’re still together eight years down the road. The rest, we’ll, my Dean and I, we’ll figure it out. And you two, I know you will, too. Right?”

“We always do,” Dean smiles, opening his palm for Sam to press the necklace in. “Hey, Sammy?”

“Yeah, Dean.”

“He’s terrified, you know,” Dean says, gesturing to the snoring lump that he now knows is his sleeping form, which is just very weird, and he doesn’t want to see. “Be patient with him, okay? But don’t let him get away with any crap, either.”

Sam smiles, dimples at full, devastating force. “I never do, big brother. Time to go.” 

Dean feels the magic crackle, and he closes his eyes.

\----  
When he opens his eyes again, he’s in his bed. 

“Dean?” Sam’s voice gasps, and he sounds older, much older than the version he was just with, and desperate, like he’s holding back a wail. “Oh, god, Dean. It’s you, it’s really you.”

There’s two hundred pounds of brother on top of him suddenly, crushing him against the mattress that, by now, remembers them both. He’s in his room at the bunker, and he thinks maybe Sammy was wrong, that he’s back where he should be.

“You miss me?” he teases, gripping Sam’s shirt to tighten the hug. “I’ve only been gone a little while, Sam.”

Sam sobs, shortly, against his neck. “You’re not… back, Dean. This is, this is future. The witch told me you’d come to me, all those years ago, a past you, in twenty-sixteen. I just never… I didn’t know, I didn’t think it’d be like this, but when I realized. Oh, god, Dean. I was so fuckin’ grateful.”

Something is churning in Dean’s gut. The desperation, the tears in Sam’s voice, this is different. Sam is happy to see him again, yeah, but he’s starting to realize, with growing horror, that it’s because this Sam maybe hasn’t seen him in a very long time.

“It’s 2016?” he asks Sam gently, running a soft hand down Sam’s back. His little brother is shivering, shaking apart in Dean’s arms, and it’s clear to Dean that until he initiates this hug being let go, Sam’s not gonna move. “C’mon, Sammy. Give your brother his lungs back.”

Sam draws away, slowly, and Dean gets a good look at his face for the first time. It’s drawn, grey, the lines on his face all pointing down towards that unhappy, pinched mouth. His eyes are rimmed red, and he smells like booze. 

“Twenty-sixteen,” Sam repeats, running his reverent eyes all over Dean’s face. “God, I almost forgot what you looked like. Didn’t think I could ever do that, forget. But I, I couldn’t remember the exact color of your eyes, the way your breath smelled.”

“Am I dead?” Dean asks quietly, and when Sam looks away, his stomach drops out of this world. “God, Sam, no. No, baby. What, what happened?”

“I fucked up,” Sam sobs, his whole body shivering still. It occurs to Dean that Sam is cold, the kind of cold that comes from the inside out, numbing you until you can’t feel a damn thing but the absence of warmth. “I killed Amara, and since you two were bound, it killed you, too. Last June,” Sam whispers the last part, and he collapses in on himself. “I didn’t know, Dean, god, I swear I didn’t. You were right, Lucifer-- he, he lied to me, or at least omitted the part that it would kill you, too. We didn’t know, and I couldn’t stop it.”

“Sammy,” Dean breathes. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Sam shakes his head, but doesn’t argue further than that. Dean knows that whatever he could say to try to convince him would never be enough, that Sam is resigned that he is to blame. 

“So, what? You just been sitting in this Bunker, drinkin’ yourself to death?” He sits up, finally, reaching for his big little brother, wrapping his arms around Sam’s biceps.

“Been waiting for this,” Sam breathes, ducking his head forward, touching their cheeks together. “Been waitin’ to see you one last time, before I…”

“Don’t you talk like that, Sam, you hear me?” Dean is terrified, knowing what Sam aims to do after Dean leaves. He feels like the world’s biggest hypocrite, knows he is, because just this evening he thought of his plan to put a gun in his mouth if he came across Sam’s corpse in that hospital, knowing that no matter whatever good fight there was left to fight, it meant nothing, nothing without Sam. 

Sam smiles sadly, his lips trembling. “Already took it, Dean. Already took the, the root I needed. Gives us just enough time.”

“Were you… is it okay that you told me that? About what killed me?” Dean wonders, but doesn’t really care. God, Sam. God. His heart is breaking in a million different pieces, seeing firsthand, for the first time, what his death has done to his brother. 

“I don’t fuckin’ care,” Sam slurs, then reaches down for the bottle of amber liquid by the bed. He takes a long drink, then settles it back down. “Don’t care, Dean. It’s too late for me, for us now. You can change it, you have to. Go back and tell me what you know, so we can find another way. Any other way.”

Dean nods, carding the hair in Sam’s face back behind his ears. It stays now, but it’s limp and dull, the lamp light making the grey stand out instead of lighting him up from the inside out, like Dean’s so used to seeing. He realizes there’s no light left in his brother to radiate. 

“I will, Sammy. I will. I promise.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “So, this is Christmas for us, you, next year? You been waitin’ all this time… to what?”

“To go in as peaceful way as I can. It’ll be like fallin’ asleep, and we, we never got back to what we used to be, you know? The, the closeness. The sex, whatever you want to call it. You died with me still so fuckin’ afraid of making a move on you, with me still dying to kiss you every day, to lay in your arms to fall asleep.”

Sam takes a big, shuddering breath. His lungs seem to rattle in his chest. “So I want, what I want for Christmas this year, is, is to fall asleep in your arms, in our bed. One last time.”

Dean is crying by now, silently, tears pouring down his rough cheeks. How can he deny Sam that? He’s never been able to deny Sam anything, but his dying wish-- Dean can do that. Dean can, would, will do anything.  


“I didn’t know,” Dean murmurs, tracing a thumb over Sam’s bottom lip. “Didn’t know you wanted it again. Want it so bad every day, to be with you like that. I’ve never stopped.”

“Never knew how to tell you,” Sam mumbles, “especially since it was me that ended it, over the Gadreel thing.”

“I deserved it, Sammy. Deserved that and more,” Dean argues, unable to hear Sam beat himself up here, in the last minutes of his life. “C’mere, little one,” he says for the second time tonight, but in a much different way, in a much different voice. “Look at you, god. Just look at you.”

Sam’s face crumbles, and he falls forward into the arms Dean has outstretched. He fits here, right here, where he always has, always should. These are the lessons Dean’s meant to learn: the way he’s taken advantage of his brother’s unending, selfless love over the years, from holding himself back out of his many selfish reasons, and the little (and big) ways he’s killed Sam because of it.

Sam is a warm, welcome weight against his chest. Sam sighs deeply, burrowing his cold nose into Dean’s neck. Dean can feel the tears against his skin, hear the snuffling breaths Sam is taking to take his scent in, keep it there, locked in his lungs until he has no more breaths to take.

Dean pulls Sam’s face back by his hair, gently, and lays a kiss against his brother’s dry, cracked mouth. Sam’s breath is short now, but deep, like it’s taking everything in him to keep it going for a few more minutes. 

“I don’t know where I’m going after this,” Sam rasps against Dean’s lips, “but wherever it is, I hope you’re there. I could deal with anything, if you’re there.”

“Sam, I love you,” Dean whispers, tucking his brother’s face back in his neck. Sam is still crying, silently, the only moisture against his dry, papery cheeks. “In every lifetime, every place I’ve been, everywhere I’m going, it’s the only truth I’ve ever known. I love you, and I always will.”

Sam sighs, pressing a final kiss against Dean’s neck. “In my pocket,” he wheezes, tightening his weak hold against Dean’s waist, where his arm is draped. “That’s where the necklace is to get back home to me. Do it differently this time, big brother. If I lose you, I know this is where I will end up, every time.” 

“I promise,” Dean sobs, feeling the life slowly drip from Sam’s body. The body he has loved every day of his life, the body he carried from a burning building, cleaned up scabs from fallen bike rides, kissed all over for the first time when Sam was sixteen, the countless scars he’s sewn up himself. The body that opened itself up to Dean so beautifully to let him inside, that first time and every time after, the one that curled itself against Dean’s back every night to sleep, to just sleep sometimes, no sex involved. (Dean aches, knowing now how much Sam needed those nights, even more than the sex.) The body that is dying against Dean’s chest right now, the one he could never salt and burn but knows he will this time, to give his brother the peace he, more than anyone who has ever lived, deserves.

“It was worth it,” Sam whispers, voice so weak now, “worth waiting to see you this one last time. I missed you so much, Dean. Thank you, thank you for being here.”

Dean can’t talk through the lump in his throat, but he hugs Sam’s body closer, and he feels it, then, the last shuddering breath, and the one Sam doesn’t take in again, will never take in again.

“Oh, god, Sam,” Dean wails, bringing his brother’s limp, dead weight against him, and he just sobs, the sorrow for this future so bright he can’t see around it for a few minutes. “I’m so sorry, Sammy. So sorry, baby, so sorry--”

Dean salt and burns his brother’s body out back, near the woods, and watches it glow and spark, through gummy, tear-soaked, swollen eyes, until his brother falls to ashes around the pyre, melting the snow. The wind carries away the rest, and on impulse, he scoops a bit of it up into the cap of his Zippo, knowing he will carry this with him forever, for the rest of his days. He will need this reminder, he knows, for those days he wants to strangle Sam for being himself, stubborn and smart and almost always right in the ways Dean can’t take. He’ll need the reminder that the pettiness doesn’t matter when it could, will end up like this, if they don’t stop it and start trusting each other again, rest of the world be damned.

He touches the necklace he grabbed from Sam’s pocket, and he closes his eyes as he’s propelled one last time.

\------

When he wakes up for the last time, he’s back in the storeroom. Nothing has changed; he’s not even sure if time has passed. Time travel is funny like that, he thinks sadly. His whole life is changed, he’s lived another lifetime, even, and Sam is still up there fuming over the dumbest fight they’ve had in ages.

He stops by his room to empty the contents of his Zippo into a ziploc bag he finds in one of his drawers, laying it reverently on his desk, wondering how the hell he's gonna explain all this to Sam. He sighs, shaking his head, unable to stay away from Sam for a second longer.

When Dean reaches the library, he can’t help but smile when he sees he was right. There are Christmas tree lights strung over everything, even looped through the staircase leading from the war room to the entrance, some draped over the bookcases. The tree is beautiful, he has to admit, with golden and white lights glowing steadily, fake snow sprayed on the dark green needles. It’s not The Carpenters on vinyl, though, it’s the Alvin and The Chipmunks Christmas album, put on to specifically annoy the fuck out of him, and Dean’s heart swells with how much he loves his bitchy, overgrown, amazing, strong, beautiful little brother.

That brother is standing in the middle of the library, hands on his hips, frowning at a set of lights that are all working except one string. Dean laughs, and Sam turns, scowling.

“Dean, I don’t care what you say,” he starts, hands still firmly planted against his flanks.

“I love it, Sammy. It’s, uh. Very festive.” He can’t stop smiling, and he feels the tears well up, so fucking grateful that Sam is here. He can still feel how cold his brother’s body was, a year from now, how unnaturally still. He’s still shaking, only realizing it now, a shivering that is coming from somewhere the warmth from the fireplace at his back is unable to touch. 

“Dean,” Sam says, his whole face changing in a second when he sees the tears streaming down his brother’s face, catching in his stubble. “What is it?” He strides over to Dean, taking him by his upper arms, peering into his face. 

“I’ve, uh. Just had a really, really long, enlightening night,” he murmurs, burying his face against Sam’s chest. He’s so fucking warm, smells sweaty and musky, and he nuzzles in deeper, inhaling. 

Sam’s arms go around him, closing him in tight. “Want to talk about it?” It’s insane to Dean, always has been, how easy Sam is at forgiving, at allowing the physical affection Dean hands out, even if he’s been angry at him all night. Dean wishes for the thousandth time his heart could be as big as Sam’s, and he marvels silently at his brother’s unending grace.

Dean is breathing a damp spot against Sam’s shirt, finally starting to warm up. “Yeah, I,” he swallows around the lump in his throat, trying to tamper down the sobs wanting to start at how fucking grateful he is to be standing right here, among this gaudy Christmas crap. “I really do, but later. We’ve got, uh, a lot to talk about, stuff I need to tell you.”

Sam’s brow furrows. “Bad stuff?”

Dean shrugs. “You’re not gonna really like it, but it’s stuff we can change, I’m sure of it.”

Sam sighs, drawing away from Dean. He grins down at him, cheeky, and Dean realizes he was wrong: Sam does still smile at him in that way, the way he did before it all went to Hell. Dean just stopped noticing, and that’s gonna change right here, right now. “Sorry about the Alvin and The Chipmunks.”

Dean chuckles. “I thought it’d be The Carpenters.”

Sam moves over to the record player. “How ‘bout we compromise,” he suggests, then Nat King Cole starts crooning over the speakers.

Dean smiles, reaching his hand out for his brother. “Hey, there’s no star on top of the tree.”

Sam flushes, the same way he used to all those years ago. The way Dean saw tonight, the way Sam had stuttered over needing this, just this, the affection, not the sex. His plan was to take his brother back to their bed and fuck him silly, and he wants to, but first--

“You waitin’ on me?” Dean guesses, and Sam bites his lip, pointing to the gold star laying on the library table.

He gets it situated with a step ladder, and they both draw back to look at it. Dean settles an arm over Sam’s waist, more touching tonight than they’ve done in years, and Sam leans back into it, sighing deep in his chest. 

“You did a good job, little one,” Dean murmurs, something Dean hasn’t been able to call him in ages.

Sam turns to look at him, the whiskey-gold in his eyes shimmering against the lights of the tree. He’s so goddamn beautiful, Dean’s little brother, and Dean refuses to wait one more night. 

“Saved the best for last,” Sam murmurs, tugging a little to get Dean to move. 

They traipse down the hallway, knocking shoulders, smiling at each other like idiots. At the doorway of Dean’s bedroom, Sam nods at him to look up, and because Sam is a big fuckin’ sap, there’s a sprig of mistletoe waiting.

When Dean looks back down, Sam is biting his lip, flushing scarlet, looking anywhere but at his brother. “I thought. I thought, I didn’t know, but I thought. Maybe.”

“Yes,” Dean tells him, and doesn’t wait another second before wrapping his hands in that lush hair and hauling his brother’s mouth down to melt over his own.

Sam groans, deep in his chest, like this is exactly what he’s ached for all these years, like he can’t believe something out there feels this good. Dean knows exactly how he’s feeling, his brother’s gorgeous pink lips every bit of home Dean has ever needed, every taste he’s ever wanted on his tongue. They move into Dean’s bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them.

He has them stripped down quickly, Sam’s back hitting the bed with barely a second to bounce back up before Dean is on him, smoothing their hips together, the rocking motion as timeless as the act itself. 

Sam is wet, always has been, gets wet like a girl down there when he’s hard. It makes the glide smooth, gorgeous, and Dean gets a hand between them to mash their cocks together in his big hand. 

“Fuck my fist,” he murmurs to Sam, still obsessing over his brother’s mouth, unable to get his tongue out of the little grooves, each one a taste he needs to remember, never forget again. 

It doesn’t take them long, so drunk on each other, the re-commitment they feel here, how long it’s been since they’ve had each other’s bare skin so close. Sam can’t stop touching him, running his fingers reverently over Dean’s body, thumbing at his nipples, scratching down his back, squeezing at his ass to tell him without ever, ever saying the words to hurry it up. Dean does, wrapping Sam’s long, shapely legs around his waist.

When he comes, he’s still kissing Sam, and he moans, the sound desperate, into his brother’s mouth, eyes rolling back in his head. Sam isn’t far behind, rutting his hips desperately into Dean’s hand, and Dean sneaks a finger down to his brother’s hole, rubbing relentlessly, never quite dipping all the way inside, and Sam goes crazy, shooting all over Dean’s fist and stomach, licking, biting at his mouth as he whimpers. 

Dean grabs a dirty shirt from the floor and wipes them both down, grinning. He can't help it; he knows he'll be able to shower with his brother in the morning, like he’s been aching to do for two years, since he fucked this all up and Sam walked away from him, broken by Dean’s inability to let him go. He thinks Sam maybe gets it now, the way he was willing to break the world, damn the consequences, to save his brother just one more time.

He collapses against the bed on his back, and Sam immediately comes to him, throws a leg over his waist and settles his nose against Dean’s neck, sighing like the weight of the last two years has melted here, finally, like the snow of the tree against the library floor. 

He’s reminded of what he went through tonight, the two very different Sams he held in his arms, but especially the future Sam, the way he sighed like that, like nothing else mattered to him, like he was ready to go, and all he needed was to be surrounded by his brother, in this exact position. Dean has always felt that way, that if he were to die tonight, he’d be happy with it, okay with it, as long as he was right here, with Sam so close, their molecules scraping against each other. 

“You ready to talk about it yet?” Sam murmurs, his damp lips catching against the skin of Dean’s neck, and it makes Dean shiver, the sense memory. Sam presses little kisses there, like he just can’t fucking help it, and he moves his mouth down to Dean’s collarbones, chest, before Dean draws him back with a hand in his hair and kisses him, kisses and kisses and kisses him until they’re both panting, hips working again, though Dean knows nothing else will happen tonight. 

It’s just about the touch Sam needs, the intimacy, the reconnection, and he cups his palm against Sam’s cheek, and Sam nuzzles into it, the stubble scraping against the calluses there. Dean smiles, biting against Sam’s mouth, knowing he’s finally gotten it right.

“You taste so fucking good, little one,” he murmurs against Sam’s mouth, their tacky lips sticking together with his words. “I’m never letting you go again, you hear me? No matter what.”

“I can live with that,” Sam whispers, his voice hoarse, sleepy, eyes still closed like he’s a couple seconds away from dropping off. 

“Open your eyes, Sammy,” Dean pleads, stroking warm fingers against Sam’s stubble-roughened cheek, dipping a thumb against the place his dimples form. He’s suddenly frantic to see them blink open one more time before they fall asleep. 

Sam groans, stubbornly, but does. He sees the twenty-four year old there, the twinkle behind those eyes, the smile in them Dean swore he hadn’t seen in years. The open adoration, the possession, the love. The way Sam has always looked at him, the way Dean has always been blind to, before the lesson he so desperately needed to be taught.

“I love you,” he tells his brother for the first time since they were children. His voice stutters over it, clogged with how much he means it, and how inadequate it feels at the same time, when he’s got Sam here again, will always have him, he knows now, against all odds. 

Sam smiles softly, then buries himself back into Dean’s chest, settling in for the night. “No chick-flick moments,” Sam mumbles, pressing a kiss against Dean’s nipple.

Dean laughs like a bark, and he falls asleep smiling into Sam’s hair, thinking that Jesus has nothing on this. That this, right here, is the real goddamn miracle of Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos make my heart swell to three sizes too big. Like, opposite Grinch-style. I respond to every comment, because I'm obsessed with y'all. xoxoxo


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